Designing and developing serious games for users with intellectual disabilities is a very challenging task. We want to improve independent living of dawn syndrome patients with a videogame for helping them to navigate the Madrid metro system. But we want to systematize the work and we are looking for a methodology to ease the creation of games for Down syndrome users. We have analyzed the literature and we are looking for proven works on games to create a methodology. We also plan to use learning analytics for knowing how the game works and user problems but based on actual interaction data

1. ICWL 2015
Designing and Developing Serious
Games for users with Intellectual
Disabilities
Complutense University of Madrid
Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence Dpt.
Baltasar Fernández-Manjón balta@fdi.ucm.es @BaltaFM
Ana R. Cano Moreno anarcano@ucm.es
Álvaro J. García-Tejedor a.gtejedor@ceiec.es
ICWL 2015

2. ICWL 2015
The project: Target and Scope
Target
Create a methodology to simplify the creation of
effective Serious Games for people with Intellectual
disabilities
Scope
From the State of the Art to a Methodology
Development a Serious Game
Videogame (complete environment)
4 minigames (different skills: motor, affective,
communicative and cognitive)
Use of Learning Analytics to obtain feedback directly
from the videogame

3. ICWL 2015
Stages of the process
State of the
art
Game
Design &
Development
Testing and
Q&A
Methodology
and
Disclosure
1 2 3 4

4. ICWL 2015
1. State of the Art: General Overview
6 Databases consulted:
ASSIA,
BioMed
IngentaConnect
Science Direct
Web of Science
DB
DB
DB
Search Terms
Selection
criteria
3 Groups of Search Terms:
Videogames
Disabilities
Methodology
43studies out of
498
Classification
Cognitive
Skills (11)
Motor
Skills (6)
Affective
Learning (5)
Communicative
Learning (4)
Methodologies
(10)
Patterns and
Behaviours (7)

5. ICWL 2015
1. State of the Art: Classification Method

6. ICWL 2015
2. Game Design and Development
Evaluation of the users with experts
Psychologists
Social Workers
Associations (Down Syndrome and Autism)
List of Requirements
Adapted mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics
GDD (Game Design Document)
Development (Maya, Unity 3D)

7. ICWL 2015
2. Game Design and Development
Characterization of the user divided by
Psychological Areas
Psychological Area Examples of characteristics that impact in the GD
Biological • Ocular abnormalities, hearing impairment
Personality • Lack of initiative, persistence of behaviour
Attention
• Difficulty sustaining attention, especially for long periods of
time (from 2 min. to 40 min.)
Memory & Perception • Better visual perception than auditory retention
Cognitive • Difficulty managing several information at the same time
Language
• Difficulty to give verbal responses: hard to obtain feedback
directly from the users
Social & Behaviour • Low spontaneous social interaction

8. ICWL 2015
2. Game Design and Development
From the user characterization to the game
requirements:
Start Menu and Game Sessions
Levels
Texts and Dialogues
Interface
Mechanics & Dynamics
Others (Music and SFX, general accessibility, etc.)

9. ICWL 2015
2. Game Design and Development
Design applied in the videogame:
“Downtown. A subway Adventure”
(developed by Francisco de Vitoria
University, Madrid. Spain)
The videogame train users with Down Syndrome in
acquire the needed skills to move around the city
using the subway.
4 in-game minigames that train the user in short-
term memory, spatial vision and other skills.

10. ICWL 2015
GDD
Development
AB Testing
3. Testing and Q&A Cycle
Learning
Analytics
Live document
Changes based
on real-time
feedback
Maya
Unity 3D
Measuring the
effectiveness of the
Game Design
Groups divided by
Intellectual Disability

11. ICWL 2015
Standards? - Cognitive accessibility-W3C
http://www.w3.org/TR/coga-user-research/#down-syndrome

12. ICWL 2015
4. Expected results
Methodology specifically created for the
design and development of SG oriented to
users with Intellectual Disabilities
Lessons learned and post-mortem actions
based on:
First approach through experts
User experience
Learning indicators and measures

13. ICWL 2015
Our work in progress

14. ICWL 2015
Use of Learning Analytics to obtain
feedback directly from the videogame
Using interaction data for assessment
• Evaluating the game
• Discovering user problems

15. ICWL 2015
Thank you!
¿Questions?
Mail: balta@fdi.ucm.es
Twitter: @BaltaFM
GScholar: https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=eNJxjcwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
ResearchGate: www.researchgate.net/profile/Baltasar_Fernandez-Manjon
Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/BaltasarFernandezManjon
Ana R. Cano, Baltasar Fernández-Manjón and Álvaro J. García-Tejedor, Highlights in the Literature Available in Serious Games
for Intellectual Disabilities. Advances in Web-Based Learning – ICWL 2015. Volume 9412 LNCS, pp 95-108, 2015.